PaulT’s Techdirt Profile

About PaulT

I'm an English systems administrator, currently living in Spain and working in Gibraltar. I'm also a total movie junkie (especially horror), avid reader and listener to both music (mainly independent due to boycotting the RIAA) and podcasts.

I'm a supporter of digital rights for consumers, totally against regional restrictions and DRM, and believe that the content industry's attempts to protect itself often damage them more than "pirates" ever could.

from the las-vegas-dreams-dashed dept

It's been a good week for articles that interest me personally, a good thing as I've been asked to write this post about my favorites! First mention has to go to Jonathan McIntosh's great recap of the problems he's had to go through at the hands of Lionsgate. In short, despite his Twilight remix video having been mentioned by the US Copyright Office itself as an example of fair use, he still struggled to convince YouTube to keep it up since Lionsgate didn't want to keep it up without obscuring it with ads (despite the current version being ad free and not monetized by McIntosh in any way himself). It's a nice illustration of how even those who try to keep within the law fall foul of corporate greed if they decide they don't like something. If something already illustrated as fair use can be treated like this, imagine the problems faced by anyone in a grey area!

On a similar note, rapper Kid Cudi yet again noted how disappointed he was in his label's commitment to his new single, just one year after having similar problems with his last album. While some were noting that he was silly to have signed for a label in the first place, this was another illustration as to how even successful artists can be let down by the legacy industry and how many artists simply don't need them.

Something slightly more disturbing to me personally is the story about a gambling software programmer being shut down and raided. The story appears to go that despite offering services that are perfectly legal everywhere that he licensed the software, he fell afoul of the US's inexplicable anti-gambling obsession anyway because he's based in the US and people in NY may have somehow touched his software. As someone who working in Gibraltar, a place whose industry is largely built by offshore gaming companies (some of whom were similarly attacked when US authorities suddenly decided that their companies were offering illegal products), this is a worrying trend. It also sadly means that my dreams of being invited to help set up a Las Vegas branch of one of those companies might still be a long way away!

On a lighter note, UK police were arguing about who first thought up their Twitter offers of free iPads to lure the stupidest criminals alive into their arms. Neither of them apparently remembering the episode of The Simpsons where Homer was successfully lured by the promise of a free boat.

Meanwhile, back in the entertainment industry, Sony offered the most naked example yet of profiteering and the back of what should be public domain material when they released a new Bob Dylan compilation entitled the "Copyright Collection Volume 1." Regionally restricted, of course, and containing rare material that will inevitably be pirated as it's not available anywhere else. It's particularly odious because the mere 100 copies they released were openly intended to stop classic material from going back to the public under the original deal made when they were recorded. At least they've dropped the pretense of helping the fans, I suppose.

The movie industry also made some wrongheaded moves in an attempt to promote their silly Ultraviolet service (yet another in a long line of DRM that offer customers less than a pirated version under the pretense that it somehow benefits the consumer). The pretense is that by offering free movies with purchases of TVs and Blu ray players, they can convince people to use and love it. Having unfortunately tried it myself (unsuccessfully) on a movie I received for Christmas, I suspect it will just let people know not to bother.

Finally, on a lighter note, it's nice to see some figures for Kickstarter's year and their great success in funding a wide range of projects. Over 2 million people funded projects this year (myself included), so here's hoping that many more independent artists get funded in 2013!

from the talking-favorites dept

This weeks' "favorites" post comes from PaulT, an English sysadmin living in Spain, who frequently chimes in with smart observations from his perspective.

As is becoming traditional, I'd like to start by both thanking Mike for the opportunity to write this post, but also noting that it's a bit more work than I'd originally thought it would be!

As a foreign resident in Spain, who suffers no end of problem because of the entertainment industry's regional policies, I found Alex De La Iglesia's comments to be heartening. The distribution of legal content in this country is a mess, and a full decade behind the US and my native UK in many ways. It's great that such a talented director is using his position to protest the more backward direction his peers wish to take, though it's a shame that he's abdicating his responsibility in order to do so.

While the music industry is a little bit ahead of the movie industry in their adaptation to the modern marketplace, they do still seem to miss the point on a regular basis. Recently, one of the things that illustrated this was Nokia's "Comes With Music" platform, which seemed to offer very little to address piracy. I predicted that it would be a failure from the start, due to its built in content expiry date and platform restrictions. These not only make it a poor competitor to legal services such as iTunes and Spotify, as well as highly inconvenient compared to piracy. Hopefully, its failure will hammer these lessons home again so that the music industry can concentrate on more viable models.

Thirdly, we have a nacho cheese lawsuit that I'm sure will bring repeats of an ongoing argument. As Mike correctly notes in the article, the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit from a few years ago is a dividing issue with people holding it up as both a valid suit and the epitome of frivolous actions. I'm on the side that feels it's valid (she should have been more careful, but it should not have been served so hot), but we'll see how this new action turns out. I feel that the parents should have been more careful, but it's right for Disney to be punished if their cheese was excessively hot.

A little late to the game, but it was nice to read a rundown of the ridiculous Fox News claims about the videogame Bulletstorm and its supposed incitation to rape. It's nice to see not only that such blatant lies are addressed, but also a mini masterclass in the various ways in which such things can be intelligently and effectively debunked.

Talking of ridiculous claims, we have a few stories about copyright that show how the system is being misused. Rihanna was sued due to some frankly quite generic S&M images in her new video being of some passing resemblance to a photographer's previous images. We have the TSA claiming that copyright is the reason they can't pass over images of their security scans. We also see the interesting question as to whether or not a recent technological marvel only succeeded by violating copyright. Such innovations may be in jeopardy (no pun intended) if the copyright maximalists get their way.

Another theme that seems to have emerged this week was the issue of internet censorship and its misuse, along with unfortunate collateral damage along the way. As the UK is apparently willing to follow the US's lead and France implements internet censorship on the pretense of fighting child porn, there were a few stark reminders that such things tend to have a lot of unintended consequences. Hopefully, Hillary Clinton will follow through and actually enable internet users to be free from this kind of thing, but I somehow doubt it.

PaulT’s Comments

Both may be true. Many newspapers have built their brand on sensationalistic headlines that may or may not even be true, let alone accurately reflect on the contents of the article. So, seasoned readers can tell from the tone that nothing of value will be there and don't click.

On the other hand, you can argue that if actual journalism inside doesn't interest the average reader, then all they have is the small details in the excerpts shown by aggregators to begin with. Given how little real investigative journalism is performed nowadays, that leaves a different problem (how to compete when all newspapers are essentially repeating the same stories), but that's a different subject.

I'd say that it's more likely that the newspapers are simply not monetising the free advertising and clickthroughs correctly and just want more of a free lunch. But you have to consider that the reason why some people might not read anything more than the preview is because nothing of value is being offered.

Thanks. An age where 41 is considered young gives me hope for a few more decades to discuss reality with intelligent folk. As shame people like you chase them all away with your drivel.

"I see... you are talking about a different article"

I'm talking about the article which is the subject of the post on which you're commenting, which is ab out Trump's words and actions. The one which everybody else here is talking about. What did you think the discussion was about?

"All I am doing is pointing out some obvious issues"

No, you're attacking strawmen, the imagined beliefs of those you're arguing with, which bear no relation to reality. You failed to get a single fact about me correct, let alone the subject of the discussion at hand.

I do notice you abandoned your attempts to magically divine my political beliefs after it was noted that you got every fundamental fact about me utterly wrong. So, you have some shred of honesty, it seems.

Let me repeat - you are attacking a fantasy. Your weapons include falsehoods, distortions, frantic attempts to derail the conversation already in place and an attempt to act superior even though you've failing spectacularly. please continue, it's entertaining.

"You are falling right into it with this exchange"

This exchange is a person addressing figments of his imagination with simplistic assumptions and everyone else making fun of him. Your lack of self awareness is impressive.

"I'm really not sure what he's actually complaining about here. If I go to Google News and click on an article from NPR, for example, I'm taken to the NPR website"

Judging by previous stories, they seem to be complaining that people will go to Google News and read the headlines/small snippets of the stories and not click through to the originating site.

I'd say that says more about the modern state of journalism and how little value the body of the story tends to have than anything on Google's part. But, however realistic, that seems to be the only complaint any of these stories have. Otherwise, they are literally complaining that the people sending them free traffic and advertising might also make money.

More specifically - they don't want to use robots.txt because that would be a) admitting that Google have been giving them the ability all along and b) they would need to take responsibility.

I agree that what they really want is to be paid either way. But, the real issue is they need to have someone else take the blame when they fail. Use existing tools to block traffic, and they take the blame when their revenue drops. Work with Google but fail to sufficiently monetise traffic, it's their fault. But, whine that Google are taking away their revenue and force Google to do something about it? No matter how Google react, they can blame them for their failure.

"You voted for a political party, matters no which one that fact that you did help foment candidacies like Hillary and Trump"

First strike - I wasn't even in the country at the time of the election, let alone an eligible voter.

"You also ignore other more important elected positions and frequently support regulation while watching it fail to do its job as in the case of the FCC that this site talks about so much"

I take great interest in the politics of any country that affects me, so wrong again. Also, why should this site not write about something that's completely within their remit? The FCC is directly associated with several subjects of this blog - politics, technology, communication, etc. Are you saying they should ignore subjects that directly interest them because they're in the news a lot?

3 out of 3 major points by my count. So, why should anyone respect whatever opinion comes out between such lies and false assumptions?

"please advise us of where I defended Trump in any of my statements?"

The article is about Trump, your comments were completely attacking Democrats who have nothing to do with the subject of the article. If that's not a defense, it sure is an attempt to deflect attention from him.

"The lesson is... endure the meaningless prattle and name calling"

I do. i'm also a little bored and like poking at people like you who pretend they're superior, while demonstrating no such thing with their words or actions. I'm not offended by you, only passing time till its time to leave the office.

"So do TD a favor and never tell people to go away"

I'll continue not doing that, thanks. You can stay, I just believe the place would be better without you. As do other readers, it seems.

Your personal anecdote is interesting, but I can think of numerous ways in which it has nothing to do with the story at hand. Also, what would you have done if they had chased after you? "I got lucky one day years ago" is not a good basis for an argument about how things are done.

"Avoid the Police whenever you can"

...and when you can't? Given the current climate, would you prefer the kids risked getting shot at because they acted like they were guilty of something (because otherwise why would they run?)

"Birds of a feather flock together, a well known phenomenon where you can tell the view points of another based on the type of people they attract. This really is not rocket science."

Nor is the fact that you're blaming a party for actions they did not commit, and trying to derail the conversation.

"I don't care how people do not agree with me"

Agreeing isn't important. Adult discussion based on facts without name-calling and shrill rants is. You've clearly failed at the latter no matter your differences in opinion with other readers. Hint: saying that anyone who didn't agree with your stance must be stupid is not adult debate.

"Do assume that just because I trash talked Democrats more than Republicans today, I am a Republican"

Experience tells me that people who dive straight into partisan trash-talk, especially in defence of Trump, tend to identify as such. You may not be such a person. However, I do notice that you've said nothing about the actual subject of this article, only dived in to act like a fool. Why that is might be up for discussion, but it's quite evident what you've done. I apologise if you're offended that the community are treating such posts as they deserve, but that's reality.

"As to why that got flagged helps to prove many claims that TD and many readers are biased towards a specific party."

No you got flagged (by readers and not the site, btw - facts matter) because you threw out a bunch of insults and didn't address the topic at hand.

"The Democrats themselves make the claim that they are on average dumber than the right because they claim they cannot obtain a proper education due to "white privilege." It is all over the fucking news!"

That's literally the first time I've heard that, especially since it makes no sense (white Democrats are saying that? That seems strange). Perhaps a citation or 2?

"If you keep this shit up then yes TD will lose more readers"

If those readers are like the comments that have sprung up here recently, good riddance.

"Remember Democrats... you are far more responsible for Trumps ascension than the Republicans"

This seems to be the claim a lot since the election. Are you guys preparing yourself for the inevitable disaster his presidency will be? You seem to be distancing yourself from choosing him. If not, why are you not owning the victory of the guy you wanted?

"What he said was it wouldn't have happened had Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton been elected"

Did he? I don't see the link to where that's shown. Could you provide it? Also, how does that tally with the fact that the deal was made before the election?

"Seeing as how poorly the markets have been doing in the past month"

Wait, I thought that the markets weren't a proper indicator of the country's economic success? At least, that's what I've been hearing ever since Obama made them rise above the level they were at before Bush's financial collapse started. Strange.

Anyway, I won't address the "meat" of the claim, only to note that when you search the author's name, the first thing that came up for me was a list of articles that include one titled "Herman Cain’s Editor Warns Marijuana ‘Invites Demonic Infestation’". Which contains the following opening:

"Dan Calabrese, the editor-in-chief of Herman Cain’s website, has grabbed plenty of attention with his rants about gay people, attacks on pro-choice women and promotion of the Hillary Clinton “shoe truther” conspiracy."

Well, he's clearly someone to trust...

You could point to the primary source, which of course is a story of underfunded precincts unable to replace broken technology, easily fixed with proper funding and oversight - something that would satisfy all parties' complaints about the process, as well as expose the problems with voting machines that don't leave a decent verifiable paper trail.

"But boycotts have been, and are a legitimate mechanism for changing the behavior of the powerful"

Indeed. But, doing it alone is not effective. "I don't like any TV" clearly isn't a reason to get people who do currently watch it to join you, and a boycott among people who currently agree with you is obviously useless because you're already doing that. Unless you get a significant number of people to join you, it's not going to work. Therefore, any copyright changes are not going to be stopped just because you hold a relative minority opinion of "I don't like any TV".

The dumb argument is not "I dislike something so will fight against it". The dumb argument is "I don't care for something, therefore nothing that happens involving that something matters". Especially if you give people no other reason to join you than your personal tastes. The problem isn't that you said you would like to boycott TV, the problem is that you stated you'd be happy to let them screw everyone over on the basis that they'd lose interest - which isn't going to happen if a majority continue to watch. The public doesn't care about copyright, they only care about the effects on them (which is usually seen years or decades after we have predicted them and after it's too late to stop).

"So far whimpering about copyright and DRM has done nothing utile but increase the span of copyright holders by many-fold"

I'm not sure how complaining about copyright has increased the span of copyright holders. Could you elaborate what you're on about there? If anything, the increase happened after the change to automatic copyright and retroactive increases to its duration, and that happened because not enough people were complaining.

As for DRM, its support has been eroded and it is gradually diminishing. Only complaining about it does nothing, of course, but purchasing non-DRMed product where possible is effective to a degree, as we have seen numerous times. But, that requires more effort and explanation than "I don't like DRM".

"If this is important to you, thenyou are going to have to fight for it."

Yes, which is why I'm going to continue to battle against the current copyright system,. whether or not I personally care for the medium, genre or title under discussion is a particular story.

Again, being against the system is OK and not caring for TV is OK. The dumb thing is going "let them have what they want because I don't care for TV". Not only are you in a minority, but the changes they force through WILL affect something you do care about. So, give people a reason to join the fight.

Sure, but not at any cost. A deterrent not only has to happen within the law, it has to happen in a way that's not going to backfire.

Here, the police are not only trampling rights, but seem to think that kids playing in the street is good enough probable cause to search them. That merely acting like kids is an indication of lawbreaking, and so they can be searched at any time without having done anything visibly wrong.

That's not going to teach the kids not to smoke pot. I'd bet they just work out better ways to hide it or different places to do it. But, it sure as hell is going to teach them to disrespect the law and consider the system racially discriminate against them (the names stated are "F.C. and Pedro", so I'm assuming they're not white). It might be that they were simply known troublemakers, but you do have to question if white kids playing in the street would be approached in the same way.

It is disingenuous to over-simplify things, but "they were smoking pot and needed a deterrent" is as much an oversimplification of what's happening here as anything else.

lmgtfy.com is a sarcastic site, the name standing for "let me Google that for you". If you could allow the script to launch, you'd see an animation showing you how to Google the information you demanded, which usually takes less time than it takes to complain.

In case you're unfamiliar with this site and author, this is an opinion blog rather than a journalism source, and Tim is known to use sarcastic humour on a regular basis to spice up his articles. I don't think somebody whining that they don't know the same slang as him is going to change his style.

"Television shows are of such low quality I have no understanding of why anyone watches them."

Utterly irrelevant. The dumbest argument in any of these discussions is "I don't *personally* care for the art in question so X doesn't matter". Your personal taste is neither shared by everybody nor relevant to the law or the reality of industry.

"Allow them their copyrighted garbage, but don't watch it. See how quickly they will lose interest in copyright."

...and how, exactly, do you plan to get everyone else to do the same as you? How do you plan to allow copyright changes to only affect TV and not a genre or medium you do personally care about?

"It will not be possible to expunge the forces that seek to bribe, extort, lobby, or corrupt the political and business atmospheres. At best we can place barriers in the way to make such things more difficult to take place"

But, what are those barriers. "Free market" doesn't magically happen because you remove regulation, and things like anti-trust and anti-monopoly only work if you have government agencies that will implement them. Which goes completely against your anti-government stance.

"You may consider my answers laughable but that is because you have no wisdom"

No, it's because I'm aware of facts. Truly free markets led to destitution, the "company store", child slavery and rivers on fire. Government stepped in to stop that. Yet, you think that a free market will prevent these things? That only works if there are competitive reasons to avoid them. Which won't happen if all the corporations agree that the same anti-consumer behaviour is beneficial to their bottom line. Especially since you're already starting form a place where they have all the advantages.

"All they have ever done is sucker the unwise into believing they performed a service of value to the American people."

Yet, without them, you make them depend on the kindness of corporations and the free market.